Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Friday, March 11, 2016

A Tale of Two Valleys

That girl and I drove
home from Yellowstone Park yesterday. My
work schedule afforded us the entire day for travel. We were not able to return by driving through
the interior of the park because the snow plow crew didn’t begin began clearing
park roadways until the day we arrived.
We were told the snow removal crew managed to plow only sixteen miles
into the park from Mammoth Hot Springs on the first day.

The park roadway from
Mammoth Hot Springs to Cooke City-Silver Gate, Montana, however, is open year-round. We opted to drive partway to Cooke
City-Silver Gate so we could see a bit of Yellowstone Park and then turn around
and drive back home from there. This
road loops through Lamar Valley. Lamar
is famous for the wildlife. Wolves are
most commonly sighted there.

The drive did not disappoint. We saw expansive herds of bison and elk. At one point, we had to slow the car and
allow a coyote to cross the road near a group of people parked at a
pullout. I actually came to a full stop
and grabbed my camera. Only then, did I
realize that the people at the pullout were watching a grizzly bear—fresh from
its winter den—feeding on the carcass of what appeared to be an elk.

I managed a few quick photographs
from the middle of the road.

After spending an hour or
so in the park, that girl and I returned home by way of the Paradise
Valley. As we entered that valley, the
clouds quickly parted, allowing sunshine to wash against the high peaks of the
Absaroka Mountains and ranchlands along the valley floor. We stopped at several locations near the Yellowstone
River to capture more photographs.

“I took this same picture
last year,” that girl remarked when I stopped at one of the fishing access
points.

“I did, too,” I said.
“But here in Montana, the sun paints with a different brush every day.”